June 29, 2018

Last week Trump claimed that the remains of 200 US servicemenen from the Korean War had already been returned, as part of that historic summit meeting he had with Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

“We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains sent back today, already 200 got sent back,” Trump told a rally in Duluth, Minnesota Wednesday, according to Reuters.

There was no official confirmation of the return from military sources, but anonymous U.S. officials said the previous day that North Korea was returning a “sizable number” of remains, which would be transported to Hawaii’s Hickam Air Force Base, Reuters reports.

In a press conference following a historic U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore last week, Trump said that Kim agreed to return the remains of deceased American soldiers “quickly.” The recovery of war dead was also included in the agreement signed by the two leaders at the summit’s conclusion.

Having already invented “thousands” of parents who begged him to bring home the bodies of their Korean War veteran children, President Donald Trump is now inventing hundreds of such repatriations that haven’t actually happened.

The return of the remains of American service members who were killed in that war has become a major “victory” Trump likes to claim from his June 12 meeting in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“It was the last thing I asked,” he told a gathering of Nevada Republicans on Saturday. “I said, ‘Do you mind, would I be able to get the remains back of all those great heroes from so many years ago?’ And he said, ‘I will do that.’ And you probably read, they have already done 200 people. Which is so great.”

On Monday, Trump told a rally audience in South Carolina: “We’re getting the remains of our great heroes back.”

The only problem: No remains have yet been returned, and it is unclear when that might happen. “We have not yet physically received them,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, but said that he is “optimistic” it would take place “in the not-too-distant future.”....

“He’s in his own private universe on this one,” said Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “He believes it’s all basically happened.”

Nobody played a Country crowd like Merle Haggard. Here he is live in Orlando, Florida, introducing his favourite song. "Okie from Muskogee"? Nope. "Silver Wings"? Nope:

Nice solos - even a trombone - and Merle himself takes a little turn on guitar. He forgets the words at one point, but who cares. This audience would forgive him anything.

Originally from 1966, this was recorded by Emmylou Harris on her breakthrough 1975 Pieces of the Sky album, though a singer less likely to be trying to drown their sorrows in a bar than Emmylou is hard to imagine. Or indeed a Country singer less like Merle Haggard. Just goes to show what a classic it's become.

June 27, 2018

North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the US and a pledge to denuclearise.

Infrastructure improvements at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are “continuing at a rapid pace”, according to an analysis by monitoring group 38 North of commercial satellite images taken on 21 June.

The cooling system for the plutonium production reactor has been modified and at least two new non-industrial buildings have been built on the site, possibly for use by visiting officials. A new engineering office building has been completed and construction has continued on support facilities throughout the complex, according to a blog post written by Frank V Pabian, Joseph S Bermudez Jr and Jack Liu....

“Infrastructure improvements continue at Yongbyon,” Jenny Town, managing editor of 38 North, wrote on Twitter. “Underscores reason why an actual deal is necessary, not just a statement of lofty goals.”

What was I saying yesterday about Iran and the World Cup? How good it was to see those excited fans cheering their players on, while the Mullahs back home will have been wearing sour expressions at this unacceptable and frivolous display of idolatrous emotion.

Well here we are, in Damascus, and Dr. Muhammad Ali Al-Malla, in his Friday sermon at the Lala Pasha Mosque, sets it all out for us. Yes, the World Cup is part of a plot, as outlined in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to distract the Arabs and the Muslims when they should be paying attention to more serious matters - like the defiling of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the bloodshed in Gaza.

"Dear brothers, most of the bloodshed that befell the Arabs and the Muslims occurred during World Cup tournaments...."

"For three days I've been contemplating how come the US does not excel at soccer. Have you heard of the US qualifying to the round of 16 or the quater-finals, or winning the World Cup? Either the US or China? Those countries have a different speciality.

"It seems that the countries of the world are divided into different specialities. The Europeans have taken it upon themselves to distract the Arabs, whereas (the US and China) have another responsibility. They have all reached an agreement among themselves. That is why you will never see the US or China or Israel (at the World Cup)....

"Why don't they do that? Ask yourselves. The reason is that their responsibility lies elsewhere: the selling of weapons to the Arabs."

It's all a plot - everything's a plot - to do down the Arabs and the Muslims.

Chinese tour groups are pouring into North Korea again as relations between the two countries warm. Chinese travel agencies selling packages to the North are inundated with requests, and video clips posted online show the lobby of a Pyongyang hotel packed with Chinese tourists.

"Train tickets to Pyongyang have sold out. You can travel there only after July 10, even if you make reservations now," a travel agent in the border town of Dandong said Tuesday.

"Getting train tickets is like asking for the moon, as there's been a surge in the number of tourists going to the North this month," the agent added. "It's getting difficult to sell train tours to Pyongyang because numbers are still growing."

Asked about security in the North, another travel agent in Dandong said, "As many as 1,000 to 2,000 Chinese tourists are arriving in Pyongyang each day. Each travel destination in the North is crowded with Chinese people. What's the worry?"

No worries at all. With the return of the Arirang Games, and those fabulous beaches that Trump was so excited about, the future looks bright indeed for the North Korean tourist industry.

Sacramento, California. College students of Japanese ancestry who have been evacuated from Sacramento to the Assembly Center, 1942. National Archives, photo no. 210-G-C471

Centerville, California. This evacuee stands by her baggage as she waits for evacuation bus. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration, 1942. National Archives, photo no. 210-G-C241

Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. An evacuee is shown in the lath house sorting seedlings for transplanting. These plants are year-old seedlings from the Salinas Experiment Station, 1942. National Archives, photo no. 210-G-C737

Family walking on highway - five children. Started from Idabel, Oklahoma, bound for Krebs, Oklahoma, June 1938. Library of Congress